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by flowermasters
Summary: Peggy and Steve meet in the most mundane of ways. That is, of course, before the bank heist. AU.


A/N: You can all blame this fic on a post I saw on tumblr that mentioned the idea of a 'trapped in the bank during a robbery AU'. This idea demanded to come out. So please enjoy this hot mess of a modern AU (featuring Skinny Steve and Peggy the eternal bad-ass.)

Warnings for: some language, some violence, one instance of sexual harassment. Nothing too explicit here, folks.

* * *

Peggy finds herself checking her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes, and curses softly under her breath. She's not running late for anything, thank God, but this line hasn't moved in quite a while, and patience is a virtue Peggy has never possessed. Nevertheless, she's already here, so she may as well stick it out for a bit longer - although she's already decided that if she's here for longer than twenty minutes, she's going to climb over the teller's counter and cash her own bloody paycheck.

In the mean time, Peggy realizes that she might as well get something done to pass the time, as checking her watch every few seconds is only going to make things worse. She opens the plain black folder she'd previously been clutching under her arm and starts skimming the report within. A more detailed review of it will need to be done shortly, but she might as well make herself familiar with it. To the average Joe, she looks like a businesswoman or secretary, ready to cash her check and head home for the day - little does Joe know that she's actually a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, and her work is never really done.

Finally, the queue moves up by one, and Peggy steps forward without even looking up from her papers. Unfortunately, this puts her directly in the path of a man who is apparently moving far too quickly to dodge her, because he slams into her with enough force that she nearly falls over. He quickly grabs her arm to steady her but doesn't bother to stop walking and help her gather her papers, which are now littering the floor - he doesn't even make eye contact or apologize. Peggy resists the urge to shout profanities at his back, and instead drops to a crouch and hurriedly tries to organize her papers.

"Here, let me help you with that," someone says, and Peggy glances up just as the man in front of her in line squats down next to her. He's a thin one, almost worryingly so, but Peggy hasn't paid him any mind until now. However, Peggy has been trained to assess a person's features quickly and discreetly, and the first thing that jumps out at her is not his size - it's his hands. They're deft and graceful, and stained in places with what looks like dried paint. The next thing she notices is that he's not unattractive - his bone structure is quite nice, the neatly combed blond hair is charming, and when he looks up and meets her gaze, she finds that his eyes are a piercing shade of blue.

"That was really rude of that guy," the man says, his brow furrowing. He looks as if he's contemplating chasing the offending party down and forcing him to apologize. Peggy surprises herself by smiling at him, gratified by the reminder that not everyone in New York City is a total arse.

"Yes, well, perhaps he has somewhere more important to be," she says wryly, accepting the stack of papers that the man hands her and sliding them safely back into the folder. No doubt they're all out of order, but as long as she hasn't lost any, she'll be alright. She straightens up, and he does the same, revealing that he is roughly her height. He's also holding some paper of his own - it looks to be some sort of official form, filled out in neat print. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he says. "Do _you_ have somewhere to be, Miss, uh, Carter? You can have my spot if you're in a rush."

At the sound of her name, Peggy raises her eyebrows at him, and he points vaguely towards her chest, his cheeks coloring with a faint pink blush. "Your name tag," he says. "'M Carter'."

"Ah," she says, glancing down at the aforementioned tag. It's very nondescript, and only serves to add to the 'businesswoman/secretary' image. "It's Peggy, actually. No one calls me Margaret and no one calls me Ms. Carter." _They call me Agent Carter_, she thinks, not without a hint of pride, but she's not exactly at liberty to brag.

"Oh," he says. "Well, the offer still stands. I'm Steve, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Steve," she says, and she means it. There's something about the earnest way he looks at her, like he's genuinely interested in what she has to say despite the fact that he doesn't even know her, that she finds charming. It's rare in this day and age to find someone, especially someone living in a fast-paced city like New York, who is actually polite. "But there's no need to let me ahead. I'm just no good at waiting."

Steve shrugs his thin shoulders. "I'm pretty sure glaciers move faster than this line does, so I think you're entitled to be a bit impatient." He gives her a wry little smile, and Peggy smiles back.

"Glaciers are outstripping this line by a good bit at this point," Peggy agrees, absentmindedly tucking her folder back under her arm. Almost as soon as she gets the words out, the line moves up one, but she and Steve are still about six people deep. "I spoke too soon," Peggy says dryly. "It's moved from glacial to snail class."

Steve chuckles at that, but before he can say anything else, a loud buzzing sound cuts him off. Peggy reaches for her phone automatically, a Pavlovian response after years of living with a cellphone constantly handy, but he pulls out his instead and gives her a slightly apologetic look before checking it, muttering something to himself about his roommate (who's named Bucky, she notes, discreetly glancing at the screen of his phone - she's not snooping, it's just a habit.) His nimble fingers tap out a short reply, and Peggy is reminded then of the paint on his hands. Once he puts his phone away, she asks, "What's on your hands? If you don't mind me asking."

Steve looks down at his hands and says, "Oh. I just came from class, and I guess I forgot to wash up. I was in a rush to beat the crowd. Guess I didn't make it."

"Class," she says. "So you're an artist." That had been her second guess - the first had been that he's currently in the process of redecorating.

"Guess so," he says. "I'm really more into drawing, but they make you take a couple painting classes. Gets kind of messy."

Peggy tries to picture him with a sketchbook, his fingers smudged with ink or charcoal instead of bright blue paint, and the idea suits him rather well. She's about to regale him with the tale of how she'd taken an art class as an elective at uni (that had worked out rather dismally for everyone involved), but she never gets the chance, because someone fires a gun into the air less than ten feet away from her. Instinct alone makes her duck, but something else - an ingrained urge to protect the civilians around her, maybe - makes her grab Steve by the collar and yank him down, too, in case more gunfire follows.

Steve's blue eyes are wide when they meet hers, but she sees no fear in them, only surprise. He opens his mouth to ask her something, but he's cut off by a man's voice, elevated to a yell to be heard over the din of several dozen panicking people. "Everybody freeze!" he yells, and Peggy thinks exasperatedly, _oh, for God's sake._

Near the bank tellers, another man is brandishing a weapon. "If I see any of you pull an alarm, you're dead, alright?" he hollers. Everyone is obviously quite frightened, but nobody moves; the threat of being shot is enough to keep just about anybody still, at least for the moment.

Peggy, in the meantime, does not draw attention to herself in any way, even though her first instinct is to let these idiots have it for daring to try and rob a bank in this day and age. Did the thought that a S.H.I.E.L.D agent might be standing in their midst even cross their minds? No, of course not, because they've probably got the impression that all government agents do is crawl through ventilation ducts in skintight black leather, ready to ambush the cartoon bad guys. "This is bloody ridiculous," Peggy mutters under her breath, and Steve - the only person close enough to hear it - looks like he agrees with her.

Peggy notes that while only two men are talking, at least three more are in on the whole thing (among them is the man who'd slammed into Peggy minutes earlier, which explains his preoccupation), and all have pulled out handguns seemingly from nowhere. The security guards have already been taken care of (none of them put up a fight - Peggy supposes that perhaps they're more for show than for actually securing things) and the tellers are next. In less than six minutes - surprisingly quick work for men who are clearly too stupid to realize that a career in bank robbery will never pay off - everyone has been tied up at the hands and the ankles.

Peggy is among the last to be tied up, and although it goes against every instinct, she allows it to happen. There's a man twice her size tying her up, and another man not ten feet away with a gun in both hands. She'd be shot before she ever got the chance to do more than remove her gun from the holster hidden under her skirt, and that wouldn't do anybody any good. No, her best chance is to go for a surprise attack, when their focus is on the money and not on the innocent civilians they're subjecting to this ridiculousness. After all, Peggy's first task is to protect these people, not put them in harm's way.

Once Peggy is securely tied up (or so her captor seems to think), he promptly squeezes her arse and starts snickering, and Peggy only sighs - really, she should have expected something of that effect to happen. It's not like an upstanding, respectful citizen is tying her up and robbing a bank, after all. To her surprise, Steve protests for her. "Hey!" he says, from his inelegant position on the ground. "Don't touch her like -,"

Steve is cut off with a swift kick to the gut, and his protest ends in a wheezing grunt. Concern for him immediately rushes through Peggy - he's so thin that there's absolutely no padding to take away from the pain of that blow. "Are you alright?" she asks him, once she's been none-too-gently shoved to the floor beside him.

"Yeah," he manages, attempting to hide the way he's still grimacing in pain. She's not sure if it's pride or if he simply just doesn't want to be fussed over, but either way, she doesn't need him pulling a stunt like that again. Steve getting himself bludgeoned by one of these goons for mouthing off won't make Peggy's job of apprehending them any easier. "You okay?" he asks. "That guy didn't hurt you, did he?"

Once again, Peggy is pleasantly warmed by his genuine concern for the well-being of a stranger. This is the second time he's rushed to her defense, and she's beginning to notice a pattern here. "I'm fine," she says, and she is - there might be a bruise on her rear come tomorrow morning, but she's had worse. "You know, you might want to do yourself a favor and not engage them."

Steve's jaw clenches slightly. "You can't just take this kind of thing lying down, you know?" he says, seemingly unaware that he is technically doing exactly that. "Bullies like those guys already think they're bigger and stronger than everyone else around them."

Something about the genuine courage in that sentiment speaks to Peggy - she's always shared the view that people who think themselves above the law and the people around them ought to be dealt with swiftly and firmly. However, she doesn't say that - encouraging Steve might give him ideas. "Well, yes," she says, "but there's not a whole lot we can do about it right now. Best to just wait until they're done and hope they let us go."

Steve sighs heavily, and in an effort to keep his spirits up through more conversation (and to disguise the way she's attempting to loosen the binds on her wrists), Peggy shifts onto her side to look at him better. This also gives her a better view of the room, and she sees that one of the bank robbers is currently arguing with a teller, who looks flustered out of his mind but keeps repeating that the manager isn't in and no one knows the vault combination except her. Peggy doesn't realize until she looks back at Steve that the position she's in might be a little suggestive (it's very 'draw me like one of your French girls', and the fact that he's actually an artist makes that comparison a wee bit more accurate) but Peggy finds she doesn't even mind - it's a means to an end, and besides, the way he's blushing and studiously not looking at her for any longer than a few seconds at a time is rather adorable.

Something seems to remind him of their earlier discussion - perhaps the sight of her name tag, as he surely must have noticed that Peggy's chest is quite unintentionally thrust out at the moment - and he says, "I told you I was an art student. But you never told me what you are."

"I work in an office," she says, which is not wholly untrue - when she's not in the field, she works in the data analysis office. "Very boring stuff." Now that is a lie, but she's already so used to spinning webs of half-truths about her job that Steve doesn't suspect a thing.

"Hmm," he says, doing some wriggling of his own - his wrists are so bony that he can't be comfortable. "You didn't strike me as the office type."

_Probably because I'm not_, she wants to say, but instead she just smiles and does her best to discreetly continue working at the rope around her wrists. "Really? What type do I strike you as?"

That comes out a little bit more flirtatiously than she'd intended, but it's alright. The more engaged she seems in conversation, the less attention the robbers will pay her, and she'll have the element of surprise on her side. Besides, Steve _is _cute, in his own way. It's almost easy to forget that he's so thin and pale when he makes up for it by being uncommonly brave and nice.

Steve smiles, a bit shyly but still genuinely. "Something more adventurous?" he suggests. "Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with office work. Somebody's gotta do it, I guess."

"Yes, well, that somebody is me," she says. "Although you're right, I think I would enjoy something a bit more adventurous."

Her gaze flicks to the band of robbers again, and she notes that three of them are arguing quietly near the front counter. Since the tellers never got the chance to pull an alarm - even a silent one - before being tied up, there is no help from the outside forthcoming, which means the robbers still have a bit of time to think about how to proceed now that they can't get into the vault. Their greed will be their downfall, because Peggy is almost loose and once she's untied, she plans on taking the first opportunity to ambush them.

Steve follows her gaze, and his expression sours immediately. _Blast_, Peggy thinks, _we were getting on so well. _"Why can't they just take what's in the till and go?" he asks. "They're already taking enough from innocent people as it is."

Peggy almost points out that everyone's money is insured by the government, but she knows that won't help - she can tell Steve is more offended by the principle of the matter than the actual monetary loss. "I think that's what they're going to do," she says mildly, as one of the men pulls out a pocket knife, frees a young teller, and instructs her to take all the money out of the drawers."Maybe they'll let us go soon."

The robbers seem to have no intention of untying the civilians before they leave, but they do seem to plan on taking a hostage. One of them, a particularly unattractive fellow with a frightening manner, says something to the teller, and she immediately bursts into tears but wisely doesn't begin to struggle. The male teller from before - the one who'd been asked about the vault - says something in protest, and receives a violent kick to the shin for his troubles. Peggy is sympathetic to their plight, and starts working on her binds with renewed vigor - she's _almost_ free, and once her hands are loose, she can work on her ankles -

She's been so focused on getting herself free without attracting attention that she'd never noticed someone else working to that same end. Steve slides his thin, artist's hands out of his binds and almost immediately kicks off the rope around his ankles - they must have been bound too loosely to begin with, leaving him with half of Peggy's time. Before Peggy even gets a chance to protest, he leaps up and flings himself at the nearest robber, who'd been slowly walking by and eyeing a group of people a few feet away from Peggy and Steve.

The ensuing scuffle takes a surprising turn - Steve manages to knock the man's gun to the floor - but ultimately ends the way Peggy knew it would, with Steve being flung to the ground and whaled on by a man easily twice his size. However, the fight distracts everyone enough that Peggy is able to free her chafing wrists and untie her ankles. She's on her feet in seconds, and proceeds to lift her skirt slightly, take her small handgun from her thigh holster, and calmly shoot the man beating Steve. She shoots him in the foot, and he promptly collapses with a howl, giving Steve time to crawl away and snatch up the gun on the floor before anyone else gets a hold of it.

Gunfire rings out as the robbers realize exactly what's going on, and Peggy grabs Steve by the front of his shirt and tugs him to his feet before half-dragging him behind a nearby column. It's not perfect cover, obviously, but it'll have to do. "Stay down!" Peggy yells to the civilians nearby, most of whom are understandably terrified. She leans around the column quickly to fire at the nearest robber, who is hit in the hand and drops to the floor, screaming - fitting, she decides, since he hadn't been able to keep his hands to himself earlier.

Someone - presumably the teller who had been freed moments earlier - has the presence of mind to pull an alarm, and the resulting din makes time seem to move much faster. It doesn't take long before two of the three robbers left standing drop their weapons and surrender - finally, they've shown that they do, in fact, have some sense. The fifth and final man makes a break for it, and is quick enough to avoid being shot on his way out, but Peggy knows he won't make it far with a heavy bag of money in one hand and the police surely on their way.

Peggy subdues the remaining four robbers, and Steve - who is bleeding rather heavily from his nose but doesn't seem to be too badly hurt - goes around the room, untying people. When the police arrive, Peggy loses sight of Steve as she is pulled aside for questioning (both from the police and from her own superiors, who show up as soon as word gets out that Peggy Carter is the hero of the day.) It takes quite a while before Peggy is cleared to leave, and when she steps outside, the sight of cameras and photographers nearby has her hurrying towards the police cars parked on the street, eager to slip away without attracting too much attention. She's passing an ambulance when something catches her eye - a familiar figure, slightly hunched over and sitting in the back of the ambulance, holding a bloody Kleenex to his nose.

"Steve," she says, pausing. The sight of him fills her with an unexpected rush of affection - she may not have known him before today, and she might think he's rather foolish for attacking someone when he had no chance of winning the ensuing fight, but he is a hero of the day, too. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," he says. "The paramedics won't let me leave yet, though."

"Right," she says, moving closer. He looks alright, aside from the bloody napkin in his hands. "Well, perhaps I can talk some sense into them -,"

"It's alright," he says automatically. "They're just doing their job." He won't meet her eyes, she notes, and she already knows even after this brief time how unusual that is for him.

Peggy finds herself biting her lower lip, unsure of how to proceed. Steve must know by now that she hasn't been entirely truthful with him (unless he actually thinks a simple secretary carries around a pistol and knows how to use it that well), and given the circumstances she thinks she ought to be allowed a free pass on the whole thing, but honesty seems to matter a bit more to him. "Are you sure everything's alright?" she finally asks.

"Yeah," he says. "It's just - I guess I was right."

"About what?"

"You're no office girl."

Peggy chuckles. "No, I'm afraid not."

"So what are you?" he asks. He seems to be warming back up to her gradually, and Peggy finds herself smiling, irrationally pleased by this turn of events. "Cop? CIA? Or, uh, MI6, I guess?"

"No," she says, shaking her head. She's not supposed to go around telling people this, but after he nearly got himself killed earlier to protect innocent civilians, something in her gut tells her that she can trust Steve to keep it quiet. "I'm S.H.I.E.L.D, actually."

"S.H.I.E.L.D," he says, with a nod of recognition. Clearly, he's familiar with the name. Peggy will have to ask more about that, if she gets a chance. "Are you allowed to tell people that?"

"Not really," she says. "So we'll have to keep it between us."

Steve smiles slightly. "Okay, Peggy."

The next words spring from Peggy's mouth, unbidden, but she can't bring herself to regret them. "I do feel a bit bad about lying to you, though. And you did help me today, even though you didn't know it. How about I buy you a coffee or something, when they clear you to go?"

Steve blinks at her, clearly astonished by this turn of events. "Um, sure," he says. "Just wondering, is this like an 'I'm sorry you're such an idiot' coffee, or - ?"

Peggy tries to hide her smile and fails. "It's a date," she decides, feigning seriousness, "if that's alright with you."

He seems completely stunned, but then he gives her a sweet, shy smile, and bloody nose or not, Peggy decides then and there that he's the best-looking guy she's met in ages. "A date," he says. "Yeah, that's alright with me."


End file.
